


Nocturne: Blue and Gold

by epistemology



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Don't Post To Another Site, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Vague descriptions of dead bodies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26001097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epistemology/pseuds/epistemology
Summary: Dick Grayson had always had a complicated relationship with falling.Or, three times Dick watched as someone fell and couldn't save them.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Comments: 10
Kudos: 91





	Nocturne: Blue and Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Title of this fic is the name of one of my favorite [paintings](https://m.jssgallery.org/Other_Artists/Whistler/Nocturne_Blue_and_Gold_Old_Battersea_Bridge.jpg), by James McNeill Whistler.

Dick Grayson had always had a complicated relationship with falling.

The first time that he had fallen—truly fallen—he had been in the safety of the circus with a net down below. His parents had looked on with pride and the hope that their little bird would grow up to be just like them. There was nothing more precious than sharing that love of the wind in your hair and on your face as you flew. They had never taught him to love it. It was simply a part of him, intrinsic to his very being.

If asked as a child, Dick would have said he loved to fall because it was exhilarating. But that wasn’t quite right. He flew because he had to, and he fell because he must.

Falling was freedom and love and  _ life. _

Until it wasn’t.

Dick had watched his parents fall from his place on the ladder, and he had screamed as the glint of their gold costumes caught the light and reflected in his eyes. After, he couldn’t remember what their faces looked like, in that split second before they hit the ground. The shimmer of gold cemented itself in his mind, wrapping around his thoughts like a bandage that held him together. He was always so close to falling apart. Too close.

There had been no warning. One moment they were there, flying through the sky to the delight of the crowd below, and the next they were screaming Dick’s name—their last words—as they plummeted. It wasn’t right. Gravity had never applied to them. The Flying Graysons were the exceptions, the ones to whom gravity bowed its head. They were supposed to fall, but they were also supposed to fly.

Dick had little conscious memory of racing down the ladder, only of people forcing him away, hands crowding and voices murmuring  _ don’t let the boy see. _

He saw anyway.

There was barely any blood. A small trickle on his dat’s temple, a drop from his daj’s nose. Something about their limbs looked off, bent out of shape in a way that suggested injury. Dick had seen his fair share of broken bones.

The eyes were empty. In the same way that Naomie the fortune teller’s had been when she’d given birth to a little girl and neither of them had made it through the night. His daj had tried to usher him away, but he had wanted to see the baby, a foreign concept to him until then. He was the youngest in the circus, after all.

He tried not to look at their eyes.

And then he was being rushed away, and there was a coat draped over his shoulders, and there were voices in his ear and hands on his body and people everywhere, and someone was screaming, and— 

_ Gold. _

The circus was so gold.

It was everywhere, and it was shimmering in his teary vision, the same way their costumes had shimmered when they fell, and Dick collapsed.

Then he grew up.

First, he was Robin, with his green shorts and gold cape and smile to complement Batman's frown. Always one step ahead of the bad guys and two steps ahead of the good. No one could keep up.

Then he was Nightwing. Because everyone had to move on eventually, and he couldn't keep the gold forever. He'd tried, in his first suit design, but it didn't take him long before he settled on the black and blue, something fresh and original. The stripes ran down his arms like lightning, and a new thrill attached itself to the suit.

This was a suit for flying.

And fly, he did. Dick knew himself, and he knew he was never one to back down from a challenge. His parents had fallen, but he hadn't, not yet. The inevitable would catch up to him, as it always did, but for now, he reveled in the naked joy of it all.

He was Dick Grayson. Falling was in his nature.

*

Jason had been an adjustment. Seeing someone else wear his colors—his parent’s colors—had shaken Dick to his core, something worse than the slight of being fired from the role. He didn’t speak to Bruce for weeks and hardly spoke to the kid at first, opting for silent glares and passive aggressive remarks instead.

Actually meeting Jason, getting to know him apart from the image he’d created of a thief who stole Dick’s legacy, had proved him wrong. Jason was a sweet kid, a little headstrong, but full of heart and compassion for others. Dick hadn’t anticipated becoming a big brother, but he adapted to the change with grace. Dick was nothing if not graceful. Jason quickly became a friend, and Dick found himself confiding in him in a way he couldn’t with the Titans or with Bruce. He just couldn’t escape that sense of trepidation every time he saw Jason in costume, the sense of fear.

It wasn’t the same with Bruce. Dick feared for Bruce’s safety, but he knew he could take care of himself. Their partnership had been founded on Bruce taking care of Dick, not the other way around. Dick worried, but he accepted the worry, welcomed it. It was never without reason.

But with Jason things were different. Suddenly there was someone that Dick felt responsible for. He was wearing Dick’s costume after all. And so Dick would stop by the Cave more often, never to talk to Bruce. He avoided Bruce, but he sought after Jason, the little ball of energy that always demanded Dick’s attention and then pretended he didn’t want it.

“Dick! Come spar with me!” he would yell.

And Dick would sigh, would play the part of the disparaging older brother, not caring that he didn’t really resemble the role. They would spar, and Dick would take the time to teach him all the little tricks Bruce wouldn’t think to. And then they would talk, and Jason would tell him about the things he was learning in school, and Dick would tell stories of his latest missions with the Titans, and it would be  _ fun. _

Everything came to a head in the fall, ironically enough.

Dick was visiting Gotham. He’d been doing so less and less over the last few months, so he’d promised himself he’d spend extra time with Jason and found himself looking forward to it.

It had been worth it, at first. They’d flown together, and for a moment Dick remembered what it was like. The wind in his hair, the sounds of two boys’ gleeful shrieks, his parent’s colors flying next to him. For one, solid moment it was perfect.

That was when the line broke.

Gold cape fluttered around the small body it was useless to protect, blue painted fingers reached out in desperation. He was so close, but not close enough. Jason fell.

There was a split second where Dick did nothing. He just stood, frozen, and he watched Jason plummet to the earth in a sick parody of his parents.

Then he jumped.

Dick had wondered countless times what would have happened if he’d jumped after his parents. He’d looked at every angle, thought of every contingency, and the answer was always the same.

They still would have died.

And maybe he would have, too. Or maybe not. But Dick had long since accepted the facts. He had only been a boy, and there was nothing he could have done to prevent it, to save them.

But he could still save Jason.

The thing about freefall was that it got you places faster. Letting your own body weight propel you towards the ground beat any other method of travel, and it was more fun, in Dick’s opinion. Right now, he didn’t care about fun, but he cared about speed. Jason was shooting downwards, body flailing in a way that let Dick know he hadn’t fallen like this before, or at least hadn’t trained himself in the proper way to do it. Dick’s own body shot after him like a rocket.

He let his momentum carry him, let it draw him towards Jason like a magnet until he could imagine their fingers brushing, and then he shot out a line, watching as it tangled around Jason’s arm. Dick pointed his second grapnel up, praying it would catch because he couldn’t be bothered to look where he’d aimed. And it did catch onto something, as evidenced by the unmistakable tug of the line pulling taut.

Below, Jason’s body gave a violent jerk as it hit the ground. The same moment the line had anchored them to the roof, Jason had crash landed, leaving Dick stretched tightly between the two. He could hear a sickening crunch when it happened and dropped the last ten feet, landing inelegantly.

Inspection revealed a pulse, weak but alive. Broken bones. The arm connected to the grapnel line pulled from its socket. Dick called Alfred with shaky breath.

Jason groaned.

“Hey, Little Wing! You’re okay, you’re alive,” Dick said before he could panic. He was in pain, Dick could tell. Eyes unfocused, hands unsteady as he tried to reach out. Dick didn’t know what he was reading for, but he gave him his hand, and Jason calmed down.

“It’s okay, Little Wing, you’re alive. You’re alive.”

Dick didn’t know who he was trying to comfort.

*

Dick Grayson loved being a vigilante. He loved the excuse to go out every night and run the rooftops, he loved the camaraderie that came with the growing size of his found families, Bats and Titans alike, he loved the thrill of it all, fighting for his life with no guarantee he’d survive. He loved saving other people.

Sometimes people couldn’t be saved.

It was a street level criminal, a burglar who’d thought the rooftop would be a good place to sneak out, nevermind that there were Bats on the prowl. Nightwing caught him, and Dick enjoyed the simple pleasure of scaring the bad guys. He wouldn’t call himself a sadist, but there was a kind of satisfaction that came from being the one in control when their eyes widened at the sight of you. Catching a glimpse of a Bat was becoming more and more common now that there were so many of them, but Dick remembered the days when it was only him and Bruce. When Batman and Robin were an urban legend, a story told to children before bed.

The man ran, because of course he did. When there was nowhere to go, he jumped. 

Dick shot into action. There was no way he would let another person fall, criminal or otherwise. He’d learnt his lesson with Jason, with his parents.

Just like that day so long ago with a different Robin than the one now, he shot out a line, catching the man’s ankle as he went down. Dick went down with him. He turned his body as he fell, angled just right to shoot another line at the metal spikes on the roof that Bruce had secretly set up around the city. Too many near misses had led to him giving them all easy options for grappling. 

He didn’t watch as the line missed its target. Time didn’t slow down enough for it to register. There was no dramatic realization, no sudden moment of fear. Just the low swooping in his stomach that came whenever he fell and no tug of the line to stop it. Dick reached out wildly with his free arm, feeling for a windowsill as they dropped fifty feet, one hundred. Seconds passed.

Then a tug. A jolt as they stopped, momentum in their bodies still trying to carry them down. Dick looked up; the loose grapnel line had gotten caught on a flagpole. He looked down, still a good hundred feet below.

The criminal looked up at him from his upside down position, and Dick could feel the man’s fear in his own rapidly beating heart. He’d never come that close to falling before.

He tried to take a breath, but his body felt like it was tearing apart, one arm holding tight to the line that kept them up, the other to the line that connected him to the man below him. His grip on both would begin to slip soon. The Nightwing gloves had grip pads for this exact reason, and wearing them also mitigated the hindrance of sweat, but he couldn’t hold on forever. And he didn’t think he could pull them both up.

A minute passed, or maybe it was less. Dick didn’t dare speak, almost didn’t dare breathe, if he thought it would help. The criminal looked up again, no doubt aware that the line was slipping, that he was going to fall.

Dick saw it on his face before he felt it. Sheer determination mixed with the kind of surrender you only see in men who willingly walk to their deaths. He felt the pull a second later, a powerful kick sending the line flying out of his hand.

Dick screamed.

The man fell, and there was nothing he could do this time, only cling to the line keeping him alive and watch. He didn’t look away when the man hit the ground.

Freed from the extra weight, Dick pulled himself up until he could wrap his arms around the flagpole and slide himself to the ledge of the nearest window. Then, slowly, he climbed down.

The body on the street was unrecognizable. He’d fallen headfirst. There was so much blood.

Dick reached out a blue-striped hand, not wanting to touch the body but not wanting to leave it there either. He moved the man’s hand from underneath his back, and a flash of gold caught his eye. A wedding band.

He jerked back as if shocked. He couldn’t do this.  _ He couldn’t do this. _

Dick backed up, slumped against the side of the same building they’d fallen from, and cried. It had been a while since he’d last let himself cry, maybe Bruce’s death.

Bruce.

His comm crackled to life with the press of a button. “Bruce? Can you- Can you call something into the GCPD for me?”

The reply was immediate, all Batman, all business.  _ Is something wrong? Where are you? What happened? Are you hurt? _

Dick answered, to the best of his ability. The glare of the streetlights catching the gold ring captured his entire attention; he focused on the electric blue of his suit instead. A familiar color.

The batmobile arrived, speeding silently down the street and coming to a seamless halt. Dick climbed in and breathed. He let it carry him home.

Dick Grayson had always loved to fall. It was a part of who he was, who his parents were. He’d flown before he could walk; that was just a fact of his life.

The thing was, Dick didn’t mind falling. He knew he would fall one day, and another day he might not catch himself before hitting the ground. He’d faced that possibility long ago.

But sometimes, sometimes other people fell, and he could do nothing to stop it from playing out in front of him. Sometimes the world passed by in a haze of colors as people fell in and out of his life, never staying for long. Sometimes his dreams were painted gold as the bright lights of the circus danced in his mind before his parents fell, over and over and over again. And then it was Jason falling, and then Tim, and now it would be the nameless criminal he’d chased off a roof.

It would always be a game of catch and release, of blue chasing after gold, reaching out but never touching. Coming close, but failing. Falling.

He watched the city lights pass by in a blur as he sped over the bridge. Sparkles of reflected light shone in blue water, and something in Dick loosened, a visceral fear unclamping itself from around his chest. 

He stared out at the water, and he thought about flying.

Things began anew.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://epistemologys.tumblr.com/)


End file.
